An online document management system allows users to store, access, and manage their documents remotely in the cloud. In addition to basic storage and retrieval services, the document management system may provide additional services to users such as the creation of custom document types, the assignment of metadata for documents, indexing of documents, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) services for documents, version control for documents, etc.
A client computer will typically utilize a replication service to upload files from the client computer to the document management system, and to download files from the document management system to the client computer. This synchronization process may occur periodically (e.g., once per hour). When an upload replication process occurs at the client, documents modified at the client since the last replication along with new documents created at the client are uploaded to the document management system. When a download replication process occurs, documents modified at the document management system along with new documents created at the document management system are downloaded to the client. However, due to the collaborative nature of coordinating multiple clients with access to common documents at the document management system, problems can arise as to which, if any, documents should be archived, either at the client or at the document management system. The result is the accumulation of documents over time that may no longer be needed. With many users collaborating together to modify and/or create documents, it becomes difficult to determine which documents may be old or otherwise out of date. This can promote confusion between users that share access to documents at the document management system.